Ted Michael Morgan

The Disciples of Christ defines my immediate church background, though the independent Christian Churches shaped my childhood. At 15-years-old, my family became involved in the denomination of my father’s youth—the Disciples of Christ. As an adult, I have taken part in the congregational life of Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Disciples congregations. Catholicism intrigued me for a long time.

 

I took my major in religion at university. I was not much of a student. I briefly attended Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.

 

I will include a longer description later. I have written too many of them to replicate the effort tonight.

 

I envy those who have the linguistic and intellectual skills to do serious theological work and biblical study. Of course, not having those skills has saved me an immense amount of work.

During 1967-68, I was briefly a student at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. The seminary is a Disciples of Christ school with students from a cross section of denominations. I found it a good school—really beyond my keen at the time. I was not much of a student.

I had attended undergraduate school with the aim of becoming a military chaplain. I took my undergraduate major in religion. My opposition to the American war in Vietnam changed my focus for a career. The day that I decided not to apply for the Army program for chaplains, I withdrew from seminary.

At the time I was in school, the seminary was beginning to explore alternative forms of ministry to pastor ministry. We were not clear about what this meant. At least I was not clear. The seminary seemed not to have developed strategies to design internships for such ministry. I fear that I was not help to them in doing just that.

Some years later, I did discover a career that lasted a quarter century that let me consider myself a minister without a religious portfolio. However, the struggle to find that career was long. Someone once blackballed me from a good job because I “had left ministry.” She felt that I had wasted the resources of my denomination. No one else considered my career as a ministry. I considered it as such. This is a 22 year old photo of me. I no longer allow anyone to photograph me!

Welcome Ted-I hope you enjoy this site. I sure do. Bobve

I just turned down an offer to work selling investment products with a godo company. I felt overwhelmed by it--at my age. I liked the career itself. You can do great good in your field.

Welcome Ted-I hope you enjoy this site. I sure do. Bobve

You can do great good in your line of work. I just turned down an offer to work in the field. At my age, I do not want to put in the hours or face the quotas, but I liked the offer.

Thanks, all. From the research I have been doing it looks liek the Access Bible may be a good one for me to start with. I need something that goes easy on someone who hasn't studied the history of her faith and its cukture in detail.

The Access Bible is an excellent beginning study Bible. You made an excellent choice.

The Disciples of Christ defines my immediate church background, though the independent Christian Churches shaped my childhood. At 15-years-old, my family became involved in the denomination of my father’s youth—the Disciples of Christ. As an adult, I have taken part in the congregational life of Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Disciples congregations. Catholicism intrigued me for a long time.

I took my major in religion at university. I was not much of a student. I briefly attended Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I will include a longer description later. I have written too many of them to replicate the effort tonight.

I envy those who have the linguistic and intellectual skills to do serious theological work and biblical study. Of course, not having those skills has saved me an immense amount of work.

I used to be an evangelical Christian (mix of Southern Baptist and charismatic, fun huh), but about 10 years ago that began breaking down for me. I abandoned the concept of a literal hell about five years ago. I've abandoned many other typically evangelical Christian doctrines, and am completely unsure about the divinity of Christ or inspiration (even in a loose sense) of the Bible. I have felt adrift. Glad to be rid of many ridiculous (as I now see them) concepts, freed of fear of hell, but have found nothing to replace the certainty with. The thing I miss even more than the certainty is the sense of God's presence that I experienced in the context of evangelical Christianity. I tend to think it is not all psychologically explained, that there was something to some of those experiences. But ever since abandoning core beliefs, I have been unable to connect with God, to feel that sense of love, to enter into what I would have called "God's presence" with the peace and insight and so forth all that brought with it. So I've felt very very alone in the depth of my being.

 

My question is, for any ex-evangelicals (I use that in a very broad sense, as in you were "born again" and believed the Nicene Creed, thought it was important to "witness" to others, felt connected to God during "praise & worship" music, etc.)--do you now have any similar spiritual experiences, as in do you now have moments of feeling connected to God, of feeling loved by her/him (we need a non-gender personal pronoun don't we--and not inanimate like "it"!), of feeling at awe at the sense of someone greater than yourself--a personal being; moments of insight that are similar to times you may have experienced before, just all around similar sense inner connectedness to a personal being outside (but somehow inside) yourself?

Fundamentalist Christianity never defined my Christian life. Evangelicalism in the classical sense of the label has. However, deep within me, a naturalistic sense of religion has always seemed at least latent.

However, fundamentalism shaped the culture and society within which I live. Learning about it defines an important aspect of my spiritual formation. My distress is in not finding where I live a community of people with whom I can share my beliefs—though that has happened from time to time.

The sense of isolation that many of experience causes great pain. Christian experience is a shared experience. In many situations, we are outside the community.